Light emitting device contact layers having substantially equal spreading resistance and method of manufacture

A light emitting device and method of fabricating a lightemitting device. The device contains a light emitting junction,such as a pn junction. Contacts (11, 15) to the junction aredesigned to have substantially the same spreading resistance toproduce a substantially uniform voltage across the light emittingjunction. This will produce substantially light emission by thejunction. The contacts can include contact layers (11, 15) whosespreading resistances are substantially matched by controlling thedoping, thickness and/or composition of the layers.